Today I watched "Grandma's Love Letter."

There is a scene in the movie where Shurou, with her child, sees a neighbor's house being robbed, and she unhesitatingly rushes out to bang a copper basin and shout for the thief to catch him.
In that moment, I suddenly broke down crying.
Because I suddenly saw my grandmother.
My grandmother has four daughters.
The four daughters each later had daughters of their own.
Our family has no sons.
When I was young, I never understood why my second aunt was always so fierce, often hitting me, arguing over everything, even being unreasonable when she was right.
Only after I grew up did I suddenly realize.
In that era, if women weren’t fierce, they couldn’t survive.
Families without sons would be looked down upon, bullied, and talked about. Women had to grow thorns to protect themselves, their sisters, and their children.
My mother is the youngest daughter in the family.
At that time, the village chief’s family had four sons, and they came to discuss with my grandmother:
“Trade your youngest daughter for us, and we’ll give you a son.”
My grandmother refused.
She would rather endure all hardships alone than send any of her daughters away.
Later, she raised all four daughters by herself.
Each of them went to school.
Each of them got a job.
Each of them lived with dignity.
To support her daughters, she did any kind of work.
Doing manual labor, taking on private jobs, embroidering quilts for others, cotton-picking, staying up late to earn a little money.
Her left eye was damaged early on.
When I was a child, I saw her left eye was all white, and I only knew it looked bad; only later did I learn it was cataracts.
But she never complained about hardship.
She loved me the most.
When I was young, eggs were a rare treat; ten eggs, I could eat five alone, and the remaining five were shared among my three sisters.
Before I was weaned, I was sent to live with my grandmother.
I didn’t understand then, only knew I loved my grandmother the most.
Every day at dusk, I would cry and call for her.
At my grandmother’s funeral last month, my mother suddenly broke down crying.
She said:
“When you were little, I could only come back once a month to take care of you for two days, but every night you would look for your grandmother, crying and throwing a fit, refusing to stay with me. It was hard for me too, but I had no choice; I had to go out to work.”
At that moment, I truly understood my mother for the first time.
Many mothers don’t not love their children.
It’s just that women of their era simply had no right to stop and be gentle mothers.
They could only survive first.
My grandfather left when my mother was seven.
My grandmother, alone, in an era where having no sons meant being looked down upon for a lifetime, stubbornly raised four daughters.
She did not bow to fate.
Did not compromise with that era.
Did not give up any daughter for the sake of a son.
Later, the girls she raised also raised us.
Across the vast rivers and seas, thinking of you in my heart, I feel no distance.